


Ryan Atwood May Be an Open Book, but This is Not Story Time

by bothsides



Category: The OC
Genre: M/M, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Slash, Slash, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-04-20 06:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4777703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bothsides/pseuds/bothsides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan broods, Seth shows some self-respect, and Summer wants to stab them both with a stiletto.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at least 10 years late, but I got really into the OC fandom last summer, especially Seth/Ryan. I trolled old live-journal posts and have probably read your fic. I wrote a long-ish fic, of which this is the first chapter. I'll keep posting, especially if there's interest. I'm kind of doubting that anyone is reading the OC anymore. But in case they are--here, against all odds! New Seth/Ryan fic!

Ryan woke up, rubbing his eyes. He looked at his alarm—9:00am. Later than he meant to wake up. He got out of bed, went to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face.

Like Ryan had tripped some hidden sensor, Seth appeared at the poolhouse door, knocking. He let himself in without waiting for a response, and walked up to the bathroom door. Ryan felt himself tense up.

“Hey, Ry! So, what are we doing today. I was thinking maybe a trip to the beach, to look at The Ladies, and eat The Crabcakes, and ride The Skateboard? Hmm? or maybe just eat all The Pancakes and battle to the death on The Ninja game? I need some Seth/Ryan time.”

Ryan gave him a sideways glance. Had Seth ever actually waited for Ryan to answer the door? Ryan was suddenly very aware that he was only wearing boxers and a tank top.

“I don’t think I can today, Seth. I have to go to work at noon and I’m… busy before that.”

Seth looked at him, hurt. “Dude, what is up with you? Something’s wrong. I’ve barely seen you for two days. You know you can tell me what’s up. Is it Marissa? What happened?” Then, Seth snapped himself out of his sincerity, bounded across the room, plopped himself on the couch, crossing his legs and straightening his back professionally. “Ryan,” he said, patting the spot next to him with a smirk. “Come. Talk to Seth. Let it all out. Let it alllll out.” He inhaled slowly and gave an exaggerated exhale.

“No, man, I’m sorry. It’s nothing. I’m just stressed about this test in Calculus on Monday. It’s fine, I just need to study. My grades are slipping.”

Ryan knew how to avoid things. Especially people. He could read people. He knew, for instance, how to tell whether one of his mom’s boyfriends would hit either him or his mom. Something about the pitch and intensity voice when he started getting drunk told him whether it would be him or his mother. If it would be him, he would find a way to make an exit, and he would walk. He knew how to clear his head, focusing on the cracks in the sidewalk, the music filtering out of the bodegas and the bars he passed. His head was empty and he just let it drift through. He would come home late, very late, maybe 2:00am, to the TV on low and his mom and her boyfriend sprawled on the couch and the armchairs of the living room, worn out from drinking. He walked up to his room and went to bed, knowing he was safe at least until a few hours after dawn.

If the guy was going to hit his mom, he would sit in his room, behind the thin door and the thin walls, waiting for the arguing to reach a certain pitch, a certain intensity, and he left his room right before the guy threw the first punch. He punched first. That was easy. Once he almost ended up in the hospital, but he kept the guy from hitting his mother.

He knew how to protect himself.

The problem with Seth was that Ryan couldn’t avoid him. And Ryan had had no idea he needed to. Why would he need to protect himself from this scrawny boy with curly black hair, who just wanted to play Playstation, read comics, and skate around Newport? When Ryan came to Newport, he felt safe. The idea that anyone wouldn’t be safe in his town was absurd to him. He began to relax a little. To let thoughts enter his mind. It took months, but he began to thaw out. He even began to notice what he was thinking.

He was thinking about Seth. He was thinking about Seth during biology class, and in the morning when he woke up. He just thought of him and smiled. Just thinking about Seth made him smile.

Lately, he had been thinking about the way the corners of Seth’s mouth barely turned up when he rattled on sarcastically. Seth’s sarcasm was never really biting—it was always warm. Those little corners of his mouth revealed his warmth, his goofy kindness.

If he had any idea this was going to happen, he would have stopped it. He could have shut himself down. Kept his eyes unfocused, never really looked at Seth. He would have taken his job sooner, taken two jobs and kept longer hours. Sat across the table from Seth at dinner, not next to him, where Seth could jab him with his elbow and take food from his plate and hide it under the table, trying to provoke Ryan. For a long time, he let himself be provoked, because why not? He took Seth into a headlock and let him jokingly beg for mercy and say he had his cake safe, he had evidence, he could show him photos and had even recorded a phone call with the cake, but he would have to let him out of his headlock if he ever wanted to see it alive. It was a stupid game, and Kirsten and Sandy rolled their eyes at him, and Ryan tried to look at him joylessly but his eyes always gave it away and Seth would smirk and then he—Ryan Atwood—found himself laughing, not checking himself, but really laughing, surrounded by other people who were laughing too. Once he laughed so hard he cried.

He should have known he couldn’t do that, that he was never really safe. Now he had let Seth in, and now he couldn’t figure out how to get out. Because Seth was always there. He had no sense of boundaries, and when Ryan tried to brood and frown in his general direction, it didn’t matter. Seth just bounced on his feet and kept talking. He should have known that as soon as he let his guard down, he’d be trapped. He knew better than this.

* * *

 

Today was Saturday, so Ryan couldn’t get away, really, not without an excuse. He didn’t have to be at work until noon. He couldn’t avoid Seth. He still wasn’t planning to encourage him, though. Which was why Ryan was sitting outside by the pool, reading his calculus book in one of their pool chairs, looking convincingly casual for a Saturday but also occupied, with Important Virtuous Endeavors.

Seth bounded up to him.

“So, Ry, you didn’t answer what you wanted to do. I was actually thinking. Do you want to go sailing? I know you have to work, but I was thinking we haven’t done that for, like, months. It’s a perfect day for it. Or you could, you know, brood about calculus and I can sit right here and read comic books and tell you all about why DC is like a million times better than Marvel, and why the Green Lantern is like a bagillion time better than Iron Man. What I’m saying, Ryan, is you’re not going to do calculus anyway today, so would you rather spend your time pretending to ignore me by the pool, or would you rather be out on the open water, without a care, the ocean breeze smoothing away the lines on your beleaguered forehead…”

Seth was making fun of him. Not only did Seth not respect boundaries, he also had no problem talking about not respecting boundaries. That was like, a step beyond anything had ever seen before. Just, total and complete comfort and trust. Seth trusted him because he had never had any reason not to trust anyone. He didn’t know any better. He should know better.

Ryan gave him a crooked half grin. “No, man. No. I have to do this. Look, they almost didn’t let me into this school. I have to do this. You know that.”

“What was that, Ryan? I didn’t hear you over the sound of the seagulls calling in the distance and the crashing surf.”

Ryan thought about being alone with Seth on his little boat out in the ocean, and… “Seth, no. Look. I can’t.”

“Alright, so I’ll see you outside by the car in five.” Seth waggled his eyebrows at him and started turning away. “Don’t forget your sunscreen, dude.”

“I don’t want to hang out with you today. Okay?” Ryan said it without really thinking. He knew how to protect himself. It was instinct.

Seth looked back at him. Damn it. Seth’s face sank, just like a freaking capsized sailboat, and Ryan had never seen him frown before. He had to do this. He had to.

“…uh, alright, man. I get it. I’ll just…” Seth turned away.

Ryan caught his wrist—again, without thinking. Where were those instincts? They had been warped by his days sitting in front of the pool with Seth. All those days he had let himself just feel warm. He cursed himself, but before he had time to really cuss some sense into himself he saw Seth looking back at him, and he swallowed, and before he became really conscious that he was still holding onto Seth’s wrist, he found that he was rubbing it. Rubbing his thumb in small circles on the soft inside of Seth’s wrist. This place, the sun, the pool house, Seth, they had twisted his instincts and he would have to get control of them back somehow.

Seth kept staring at him, and Ryan felt his own face sink. He had just ruined everything. And then Seth shook his hand free, almost violently. Ryan’s knuckles hit the side of the table next to him sharply, and that smarted. Ouch.

Seth looked at him. Cooly. No, cold. He was looking at Ryan coldly. “Forget. It.” Seth dropped the words—one, two—and walked into the house. He slammed the door when he got inside. Ryan shivered.

Ryan knew he had broken something. He had had to, he reminded himself. He should have done it earlier. It was like an inoculation. A little bit of something bad to prevent an outbreak. Or breaking some small bones to do surgery and save the patient. He wasn’t sure if the patient was him or Seth.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer stages an intervention.

Ryan used to think Seth could never stop talking. He was wrong. At breakfast, Seth was Seth, joking with Sandy and Kirsten, waving a bagel in the air. At school. Seth was Seth, dueling with Summer, who called him a dork and hit him on the back of the head with the latest issue of Cosmo. When he was alone with Ryan, which was never unless he had to be, unless they were driving to school together or Seth’s parents suddenly left the room, Seth was silent. He stared out the window and jammed his earbuds into his ears. It was… awful. But familiar. This was what always happened. People around Ryan broke. Seth shouldn’t have gotten close to Ryan. Ryan shouldn’t have let him. He’d fixed that, and it sucked, but Seth would adjust. It was better this way.

After one lunch, about a week into Seth’s deafening silence. Summer turned to Ryan. Seth had left the table and Summer had shouted a couple insults after him. “Chino,” she said. Hissed. Ryan looked at her. “You. Me. After school. Outside. Bench.” He wiped his face without thinking about it, because it really felt like she was spitting at him.

“Uh… okay,” Ryan said, helplessly.

* * *

Summer stalked toward him, in her four-inch stillettos and a miniskirt. He was sitting on a bench outside the school, just as instructed. She looked pissed. Ryan thought briefly about running way. He wasn’t scared of much, but the look Summer gave him terrified him. 

“Ryan,” she said. “We need to talk.” 

“Oh?” said Ryan, trying to look casual, surprised, and aware that his eyes were darting around. 

Summer just looked at him. Ryan felt her eyes bore into his neck like lasers. He felt a blush slowly spread up his neck and over his face. This was ridiculous. He could take on the water polo team, but not Summer Roberts? He tapped his feet, trying absurdly to look casual, until what felt like hours. Then he finally made himself look at Summer. 

He wished he hadn’t. She was crossing her arms, leaning onto one hip, and her eyes looked like they were about to shoot flames. She just raised her eyebrows when he looked at her. 

“Look Summer,” he finally said, giving up on being casual. “You were the one who wanted to talk to me. Well, here we are. What is it?”

“You. Broke. Cohen.” She spat out. “You have to fix him, because this is getting seriously stupid. He barely even talks to me any more. Unless you’re around, and just so you know, that’s a show. He still shows up at my house, but he just mopes. It’s like hanging out with YOU! And that’s the last thing I want to do.” She paused. “I mean, no offense. I guess.”

Ryan snorted. Summer’s eyes turned to steel and he looked up at the sky, Mr. Super Casual.

“Cohen is my friend. I need him, to go to the mall with me, to ramble on for hours. I’ve gotten used to his endless mumbling. It’s… oddly comforting. You broke him. You have to fix him.”

Ryan looked at her, exasperated. “I didn’t DO anything! I mean, what has he told you I did? How do you know this is my fault?”

“He didn’t need to tell me, jerk. He turned into you, all weight-of-the-world and heavy sighs, and he won’t talk about anything, including you—especially you—which he used to do all the time! It’s so obvious. But it doesn’t matter how I know. You just need to fix it.”

Summer walked up to him and her nose was, terrifyingly, two inches from his. 

“Let me say this really clearly. You hurt him. You hurt Seth. He is my best friend. You are still hurting him. If you don’t stop, I will kill you.”

Ryan felt his heart drop. He had never been this terrified of any person before. He felt ridiculous, and he tried to shake himself out of it. 

“Summer, listen,” he said, throwing up his arms, suddenly talking more than he had all week. “I’ll tell you exactly what I did. What I did to ‘break’ Seth. Alright? And then you tell me what I did to break him and how I can ‘fix’ him, alright? I… we were… I was sitting by the pool, and Seth came up to me and was talking to me about hanging out and I wasn’t… as excited as he wanted me to be, I guess, and he turned away and I…”

Summer stared at him, raising her eyebrows. “Well?” The word whizzed at him like a bullet. Faster than a speeding bullet. Seth had made him read too many “Super Summer” comics. 

“Well, and I… I grabbed his wrist. And I did this small little thing with my thumb, like I just like… I…”

Summer started to smirk. Just barely. 

“I rubbed his wrist a little bit. I was just…” Ryan felt his face contort. He felt totally exposed. Again. “I don’t know. It was stupid. This is stupid. And he looked at me, and he got pissed and ran off! What the hell was I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to apologize for that?”

Summer’s smirk turned into a grin and she started giggling. “Did you rub his wrist clockwise or counter-clockwise,” she asked sarcastically. “How much pressure did you apply? Can you draw me a diagram?”

“I don’t get you at all,” Ryan told her. “By the way, you sound like you’ve turned into Seth.”

“Um, repressed much? Closet case much? You are, like, a mockery of yourself. Like a cartoon cutout—no—a diorama—of repression.”

“Great, Summer, thanks. You’ve really made me want to open up to you.”

“Look, Chino,” Summer said, softening. “I honestly didn’t think you would be so dense. That is my fault. I over-estimated you.”

“Gee, thanks. This just keeps getting more comforting,” said Ryan. 

Summer sat down next to him, crossing her legs and moving the top one up and down, and the stilettos were terrifyingly close to his thigh. Ryan didn’t want a puncture wound, but he didn’t want to show weakness. He gripped the bench on either side of his legs with both hands tight his knuckles turned white. He was not going to give her an inch.

“Alright. I believe you. I didn’t think you could possibly be this in denial, but now I see the evidence. You need someone to hit you over the head with this. And I will oblige. You can thank me later.” She patted him on the shoulder. He gripped the bench harder. 

“Okay,” she began. “Anna left Cohen because of me. And I thought it was always me, until I was actually with him, and then, hey, guess what! He still wanted to hang out with you all the time, Chino. All day long, it was Ryan this, Ryan that. Can we invite Ryan. Ryan said this. God, it got old quickly.” Summer examined her nails.  
“I might have been the only one for him, until you showed up in Newport like some abandoned puppy. An annoyingly handsome, brooding abandoned puppy. Since then, it’s only been you. The thing is, that stupid dork made me care about him, like actually care about him—ew—and now even though I’m like SO annoyed every time I look at him I still want him to be happy and ew! Just, ew. What am I saying? Gross.” Summer looked at Ryan, who looked away. “I don’t mean like… you… you and him… are gross. I just mean that I can’t believe I’m saying all this stuff. Like, I’m still working for Cohen, after he dumped me? Just, don’t tell anyone this, okay, God! Like first I’m dumped by Cohen after telling the whole school I’m dating him, and then I still hang out with him even though he humiliated me, and now I’m playing love doctor for him?”

Ryan looked at Summer’s disgusted face, her nose twisted up like she smelled something bad, and he broke into a smile. He hoped it covered the blush that had been rapidly rising to cover his face. Summer saw him and poked him. “Made you smile! Made you smile! Man, I can just take the rest of the day off, Atwood. The week! The year!” Summer threw her arms up and looked up at the sky. Ryan grinned, and then forcibly crushed his grin and tried desperately to throw her his trademark brooding sideways glance. 

Summer, of course, caught him, and burst into giggles. 

“I’ll tell you how you fix him,” Summer said. “Just… talk to him. Talk to him and just, try not to be so brooding. Okay? He cares about you. He likes you. God dammit, alright, he loves you.” Ryan felt his blush quickly return and deepen. He looked like one of the lobsters he served at the crab shack. “Just freaking talk. Talk about it. It is not that hard. I just heard you do it! For, like, 30 seconds straight! Just fix it Ryan. I am warning you.” Summer shot him a glare, but wasn’t as laser-like as the one before. He could feel a softness in it, even sympathy, but he was sure it could still kill him.

Summer stood up. “Just get it done. Now. Because this is seriously annoying.” She walked away, heels clicking sharply on the concrete. She didn’t look back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth isn't interested in Ryan's Big Gay Drama.

So. Ryan had to talk to Seth or Summer would kill him. That simplified things.

Ryan had never had to get Seth’s attention before. Seth had always come to him. He tried to be subtle about it. In the morning, at the breakfast table after Sandy and Kirsten had left, he coughed. He even coughed twice, and Seth didn’t have his ear buds in, but he didn’t even look up at Ryan. He kept looking down at the paper. He didn’t even flinch.

The next day, Ryan tried staring at Seth. Seth drove to school and Ryan stared straight at him. Seth looked at the road, and didn’t glance at Ryan for a moment. He stared at him for the full twenty minutes it took to get to school, and still, nothing. When they got to school, Seth looked up at the sky and said, “what a lovely day. Not a cloud in the sky. Don’t you think so, Ryan?” and jogged away from him toward school. Since when had Seth become the picture of self-control?

That day, at school, Summer caught Ryan’s eye at lunch, and she violently stabbed her grapefruit and then mouthed “do it today” before going back to jousting with Seth like nothing had happened.

He would have to be unsubtle. And he had to do it tonight.

* * *

That’s why he found himself standing outside of Seth’s closed bedroom door—well, pacing in front of Seth’s bedroom door, if he was honest with himself, and trying not to make any noise, because Sandy and Kirsten’s room was just down the hall. He turned too quickly, and jabbed his toe on the door jam. “Fuck,” he said under his breath.

He heard a sigh from the other side of the door. “Ryan,” Seth said, sounding tired. “You are not exactly the picture of stealth, dude. I know you’ve been out there for like half an hour. I could let you keep doing this, but I was hoping to get some sleep tonight, and you’re like a mosquito or something.”

Ryan opened the door. He his cheeks felt hot.

“Why the hell are you so angry with me, Seth?” he asked. “I know I was weird. By the pool. But you’re like, punishing me. I’m sorry, okay? What am I supposed to do to make you stop doing this?”

Seth was sitting calmly on his bed, drawing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ryan.” He didn’t look up at him.

“That, Seth! I’m talking about that. You don’t even look at me anymore. Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was doing. I shouldn’t have done it. Whatever it was.”

“What was it you were doing, Ryan?” Seth asked, again, without looking up, and without taking his ear buds out of his ears. “By the pool that day. What was it?”

Ryan sighed, bunched his fists. Seth wasn’t going to make this easy for him. “I think you know what that was,” he said, quietly. “I’m sorry. But you’re going to have to stop taking it out on me. It was stupid. I was stupid. I didn’t mean to let it happen. But Jesus, Seth. Please stop whatever it is you’re doing to get back at me.”

“You’re very talkative all of the sudden,” said Seth, as though he were talking about the weather. The weather that never changed.

“Seth,” he said. He had been saying too much. Seth was still having that effect on him. He was supposed to be in control. He would take that back. “I’m not leaving.”

“Well, make yourself at home, then,” said Seth. Ryan came into the room at sat on the floor with his back to the wall. Seth was silent for fifteen, then thirty minutes. Drawing. Ryan felt a cramp beginning in his leg, but he didn’t move. Then Seth started talking.

“We’ve already had this out, Ry. We don’t have to talk anymore. You said everything I needed to know.” Ryan stared straight ahead. “You know what you said when you looked at me, all heartbroken and brooding, Mr. Rochester?” Seth said, almost at a whisper. He had been sitting straight up, but now he slumped. “You said, in that one look—such a talent of yours, how much you can say with one look, by the way. Very efficient. Very impressive.” He paused again briefly. “You said, ‘I care for you, Seth, but the weight of my caring is heavy on my soul.’” Seth clutched his heart and spoke with dripping sarcasm. No warmth in it. “’My caring about you is a deep tragedy and a deep shame. But I will acknowledge it with a heavy heart, knowing that by barely even showing my feelings a little bit, I am beginning a tragic drama which will end badly, like everything else in my life. But I will sacrifice and I will suffer, as I always do so nobly.’”

Seth shook his head, exasperated. “You know what? I don’t want tragedy. I don’t want you to have feelings for me if you are going to be so heavy hearted and ashamed of it. You know? Fuck that. And fuck you, man.”

“Seth,” said Ryan, trying to break in a little. “Give me a little time with this. I mean, I’ve never liked a guy before…”

“No,” said Seth firmly. “Just… no. I am not ‘a guy.’ I am Seth. Me. You have never liked me before. I am not interested in being in your Big Gay Drama. I am not interested in waiting while you question your manhood and your identity and suffer and look at me all I-want-you-but-oh-the-horror. All I ever wanted was what we had, I mean what we had anyway, with, you know, maybe some making out or something…” Seth trailed off and blushed. “Oh, and maybe not having to watch you self-flagellating about Marissa. Maybe getting to see you be happy for a change. Not watching you beat yourself up. And trying to save someone who doesn’t really want to be saved, who you can never really help. Because that’s all you seem to know how to do.”

Seth’s shoulders slumped. His anger popped like a balloon. “So when I saw you, looking at me, I saw—like at exactly the same time—that I had what I always wanted, what I barely even let myself think about—and at the same time, that I had to give it up. I could only have what I wanted if I was part of your next tragedy. And I can’t do that, Ryan. Because…” He turned his face away from Ryan. “Because I can’t be part of something that makes you suffer,” he said quietly. Then he looked back at him. He looked totally defeated. “So, I’m sorry I’ve been angry. It was easier. I will go back to being your friend. I really will. It’s just kind of fucking intense to see what you want, something you’ve never let yourself really hope for, in front of you, and see it turn to shit. I saw it and I had to give it up because I won’t be covered in shit. It doesn’t look good on me. Totally not my color. I need some time.”

Seth looked straight at him, now, and Ryan looked back. “And, to be honest, I don’t want to help you, Ryan. I don’t want to hold your hand, or even just wait, while you work through your issues, your disgust. So, I guess I’ve said what I needed to say. I’ll see you around, dude.” Seth looked away from him and started sketching again. “You have to go now,” Seth said. Ryan walked out of Seth’s room and closed the door carefully behind him.

He walked back to the poolhouse, sat down on his bed, and lay back, spread-eagled. He didn’t know what else to do. He was brooding, and Seth didn’t want him to brood. He got that. He just didn’t have the energy or willpower to do anything else.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan makes a list.

The next morning was Saturday, and again, Ryan didn’t have to work until noon. He felt like he had a hangover, but he was cursedly sober.

He pulled on some sweatpants and a T-shirt on, slipped into some sneakers, and went outside. He could see movement in the kitchen, Sandy and Kirsten holding coffee cups and talking. Sandy kissed Kirsten on the cheek. He avoided the house, walking around it and down the driveway to the beach, where he could run.

It was early. The sun was just coming up, and the surf was quiet except for some crashing waves and some surfers—the early-morning kind who came for the solitude, so they weren’t making any noise, either. Ryan ran, the thud of his feet regular and soothing.

He’d done this when he broke up with Marissa—after the final time, the time that stuck. He couldn’t even really say why he broke up with her, besides that he was tired. Tired of listening to her slur her words and stumble at times when he had to help cover it up—at school, at a thousand charity balls, once even in the morning at the Cohens, when what he should have been most worried about was, well, that she was there in the morning at the Cohens. He was tired of expecting it. He thought he loved her, and couldn’t say to her face that he didn’t, but after a few weeks, it stuck. She believed that he was done.

What he couldn’t get now was that he felt the same way now—like he’d just gone through a breakup. A breakup… with Seth? Who he hadn’t even dated? He felt like he had skipped ahead several chapters—he was way ahead of himself, or Seth was way ahead of him. Seth told Ryan he had feelings for Seth, and that was fucking weird for a variety of reasons, one being that Ryan hadn’t corrected him. Instead, he’s just felt tired, and kind of weirdly felt that Seth was right, that he was just reminding him of something. And Summer, even Summer was talking like it was a foregone conclusion that he… he hadn’t corrected her, either. He had become fucking open book, one that everyone could read but him. The comfort of the Cohens’ home, and the Cohens themselves, and the routine of sleeping without tension, and sailing and listening to Seth babble on about the X-Men—it had really worn him down. Something was suddenly normal to everyone else that he hadn’t begun to get used to. He was supposed to be ahead of everyone, not the other way around. This was dangerous and unpredictable. He had to make things make sense. He ran until it started to get really hot outside, and he made a list in his head. He kept running, trying to catch up.

When he got back to Casa Cohen, he jotted his list down, and then he went to Seth’s room. Seth wasn’t there, so Ryan open the door and hung the list on the inside of Seth’s door with a thumbtack, thinking about Martin Luther. The eight theses, he thought. Then he closed the door.

It read:

_Seth—_

_1) I’m sorry._  
_2) Your parents._  
 _3)_ Your parents.  
 _4) We live together._  
 _5) The water polo team._  
 _6) We live in Newport._  
 _7) I don’t know what I’m doing._  
 _8) I’m sorry_.

Seth was gone all day. Sandy told him he’d gone off to hang out with Summer. “You kids are so mature,” Sandy said, handing him a bagel. “I don’t remember anyone ever hanging out with their ex-girlfriend back when I was growing up.”

Ryan snorted despite himself. “Yeah. Really mature.”

“I suppose that is an unconventional word to attach to Seth. You have a point,” he said, slapping Ryan on the back and grinning.

Kirsten looked up from where she was sitting, reading the paper. She looked at Ryan. Her eyebrows were knit close together. “Things are a bit different from how they were back then, Sandy,” she said quietly. Then she looked at Ryan and asked, “Is everything okay with you two?”

Sandy looked up at Ryan, too, expectantly. Of course they knew there was something going on between him and Seth. He might as well have taken an ad in the paper. But he wasn’t about to make them a diorama. “Yeah, we’re good as far as I know,” Ryan said, his mouth full of bagel. Ryan took part of the paper from Kirsten and sat down at the kitchen island, staring at it like there was nothing more in the world that interested him than… the classifieds, which was of course the section he grabbed from Kirsten.

Whatever. Ryan might be an open book, but this was not story time. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kirsten and Sandy give each other one of their trademarked looks—understanding tinged with slight worry. They left him alone. He left for the lunch shift.

Seth didn’t come home until after dark. Ryan, exhausted, had fallen deeply asleep by eight, with his work clothes still on. He woke up when he heard a rustling under the door, and he blinked his eyes open to see Seth, outside the pool house’s glass windows, walking back toward the house with his back to him.

He wiped the drool from his face and walked to the door. Seth had shoved his list under it. Ryan turned it over and saw—

_Ryan:_

_1) It’s fine._  
_2) Whatever excuse you need._  
 _3) I guess this one is the most convincing for you._  
 _4) Another primo one. Great work, buddy._  
 _5) Seriously?_  
 _6) Okay, you’re losing your edge here._  
 _7) Like I do? I just know a couple things, which I already told you._  
 _8) I am, too. Kind of an understatement. Of the millennium._

_Dude—I meant what I said. I’ll stop this soon._

Ryan smiled. And sighed. And rolled over and went back to sleep.

In the morning, Seth still didn’t look at him, but he didn’t avoid him, either. He didn’t wake him up in the poolhouse, but he handed him some coffee when he came into the house. They listened to music on the way to school, but Seth didn’t turn it up so loud that Ryan couldn’t say anything, though he didn’t because he seriously didn’t know what to say. Then Seth walked with him into the building, and told him he would see him at lunch before he left for his class. At lunch, Ryan didn’t say anything, which wasn’t really that unusual, and Summer and Seth had a sword fight with a couple of butter knives, which was pretty much in the realm of usual, and when Seth wasn’t looking, Summer gave him an approving look and mouthed “you’re off the hook, Chino.” So Ryan guessed he was catching up to something.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan is happy for Seth. Really.

Things kind of returned to normal after that. Except that they didn’t. Ryan felt like he was watching Seth thaw, the way he had thawed, except it wasn’t all the way. No one would know it but the two of them. Seth went back to waking Ryan up in the mornings, and he came with coffee in hand, but he knocked. They still spent almost all of their free time together, but not all. And often, Summer was there, or even Marissa, who kept looking at him with annoyingly soulful eyes he had to look away from. Ryan figured Seth wanted him not to be tragic about it, so he laughed, and once Seth even stole his food at the table and he put him in a headlock, and he figured that he had come to understand an even more subtle kind of protecting himself. Because he knew that he was happy, he really was—except not quite all the way. But it didn’t feel really like protection. It wasn’t quite up to him, somehow. It was like that for a few months, and Kirsten eventually stopped giving him worried looks, and he got into a routine that was pretty familiar. 

Except that then, Seth came into the pool house one day, knocking but not waiting for an answer, and looking purposeful. Ryan smiled, noticing that Seth didn’t wait, and cleared off a space for him to sit at the end of the bed. Seth sat there, looking down and chewing at the corner of his mouth.

“So, hey, Ry. Something to tell you. I mean, I don’t want this to be like, a big, whatever,” he said, and waved his hand vaguely between them. “I just figured, you, like, might want to know this ahead of time, before you like, hear about it in the morning announcements or before some big guys who shave their chests started calling me names with no sense of irony, but maybe that actually won’t happen because he’s on the water polo team, too, which is like, crazy. More likely that Summer talks about it at lunch, or even maybe you might figured it out when he comes around, you know, at school, and like, talks to me more than now and maybe even comes to the house or something. I don’t know. I mean, I guess there wouldn’t be anything wrong with you finding out another way, but I mean this also doesn’t have to be—“

“Seth, breathe. What is it?” 

Seth breathed in, and out, exaggeratedly. “Okay. I’ve been… hanging out with this guy, you know, Zach?”

He did know. Zach had been hanging out with them more. He was in a comic book club with Seth that met twice a week after school—actually, they _were_ the comic book club—and he had started to sit at lunch with them, even though the rest of the water polo team always sat together three tables away.

“So we’ve been hanging out, you know, like in the gay way? Because I’m gay, we’re clear on that, right? Like in the sense that I like dudes?” A small pause. Ryan looked at his hands in his lap. “Right. And I think I might really like him? And I guess things have been weird between us, I mean, between you and me, and I guess I haven’t been talking about things, like who I might like. And I don’t know if you’re okay with me talking about dudes. But I didn’t want to… not talk about this. Because, I mean, you’re still my best friend, like on the scale of Batman and Robin, or _Kavalier and Clay_ , and I feel like I have to tell you or we won’t be—I mean also I want to tell you, I don’t just feel like I have to.”

Ryan wasn’t totally surprised. Zach had been coming around to the house, and laughed at Seth’s jokes, not just the half-smile that Ryan usually gave him. And Zach was a good guy. He came from Newport, too. Son of a congressman. It made sense. The Newspies would talk about it, but their families were so inside, so influential, that they had to show some restraint. Ryan should be happy for Seth.

“I’m happy for you, man,” he said. Just like he should. And he clapped Seth on the shoulder and smiled at him. Like a best friend. “That’s awesome. He better be good to you.”

“That’s another thing, Ry, actually. Zach has this weird idea in his head that, like, you don’t like him? I don’t know what that’s about, but you do, like, not talk to him much at lunch. I don’t know. I don’t really know where things are going with us yet, but if you could, like, make an effort with him, that would be super awesome. Is that a weird request? I don’t know.”

Ryan looked at Seth, and down at his hands. “No, that’s not weird. Sorry if I’ve been salting your game, man.”

Seth broke out in a huge smile. “Good throwback, Ry. Whew, alright, enough sharing time, dude. Playstation? Can I beat your ass at Grant Theft Auto again? For someone who actually stole a car, you are pretty bad at stealing virtual cars, I gotta say.”

Ryan smiled. “I was pretty bad at it in the real world, too.”

Seth smiled back. “But it got you here. So I’m not complaining.” They went to the living room and played until Kirsten called them in for dinner.

The next day at school, Ryan smiled at Zach. He laughed when he was supposed to. Seth grinned at him and mouthed “thank you.” Ryan looked down, absorbed in his yogurt.

* * *

 

Ryan smiled at Zach every lunch period for three months. Seth got his acceptance letter from Brown, and Ryan got his from Berkeley. He smiled through their graduation photos. He put his arm around Seth as Kirsten took a thousand pictures. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been awhile! Next update shouldn't take as long.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One person alone, feeling neglected by Cohen--that’s just sad. Two people, well, that’s... slightly less sad.

“Since when are we friends, Summer?” Ryan asked.

“Since you showed you could follow my orders and fixed things with Cohen. And since he became, like, totally obsessed with Zach and started ignoring both of us. The punk.” Summer started drawing circles in the sand with a shell.

Ryan and Summer sat next to each other on the beach, facing the ocean. Ryan looked out at Zach and Seth, running together into the waves. Zach dunked Seth under the water and Seth came up sputtering, yelling, and laughing. Ryan gave Summer a sideways glance. She was lounging next to him. She seemed relaxed.

“They’re happy,” said Ryan. 

Summer rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever. That makes two of them.” She stood up suddenly. “Let’s go.”

Ryan’s eyebrows went up. “Where?”

“Ice cream. Away from the golden boys.”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“Cohen!” Summer shouted at the boys in the ocean. “Ryan and I are going to…” Seth glanced up at them and Zach took advantage, barreling into Seth from behind and knocking him underwater. “Nevermind,” Summer muttered, and grabbed Ryan’s arm, hauling him up. They walked in silence for awhile.

“This summer seriously sucks. As much as this sucks for me, it must _really_ suck for you,” she said, looking at the boardwalk in front of them.

“I guess,” said Ryan.

“How does Cohen get everything he wants?” she asked him, and they sat down at a table. “It’s annoying. He gets me, even after he dumps me, and you, and now Mr. Newport.” The waiter brought them water and she fiddled with the straw.

“It’s not that bad,” Ryan said, looking away from her.

“Oh, Ryan,” Summer said, looking at him with sympathetic eyes. “God, you are just a glutton for punishment, aren’t you? I don’t know how you can stand it. It’s like you get off on torturing yourself or something.” Ryan eyed her warily. He ordered strawberry ice cream.

Everyone thought he had a white knight syndrome, and okay, maybe he did, a little. With Marissa. That had been familiar. But this was different. The difference was that Marissa hadn’t really wanted to be saved. She hadn’t really wanted to be happy.

Seth did. People thought he was immature, but Ryan didn’t. Seth had realized he couldn’t have what he wanted with Ryan, so he did what a really self-respecting person would do and moved on. And sure, Ryan had some regrets, but he had done some thinking. He knew some things. Like, for example, that he couldn’t give Seth what he wanted. And that he couldn’t risk damaging his relationship with Kirsten and Sandy. He also couldn’t hurt Seth by not hanging out with him anymore. He just didn’t have it in him.

He didn’t have it in him to date anyone else, either. It was a practical matter. It wouldn’t be fair to the… the anyone else. So, sure, he had given some things up, over the last half a year. But it didn’t really hurt, not that much. His sacrifices meant something to him, even if they didn’t mean anything to anyone else. They meant Ryan was honest with himself, and they meant that Seth was happy. 

“Summer,” he said. “It’s not like that. And no offence, but I don’t really feel like having a heart-to-heart.”

“You don’t have to. Your face is an open book. You haven’t really denied a single. Thing. I’ve. Said.” Summer poked him with the straw between each word as punctuation. “I’m just pointing out the obvious.”

Ryan sighed, gave up, and smiled at her.

“I think you and I should join forces,” said Summer. “One person alone, feeling neglected by Cohen, that’s just sad. Two people, well, that’s…”

“Slightly less sad?” offered Ryan.

“There you go, Chino!” said Summer, grinning at him and shoving at his shoulder with her palm. “That’s the spirit. So, what do you say—tomorrow, bait shop?” He shrugged.

The rest of the summer, Summer dragged him around as she went shopping, went to beach house parties, and even went to her house for dinner sometimes. He was fairly certain Dr. Roberts thought they were dating, but he figured it was Summer’s responsibility to correct him if she wanted to. At night, and in the mornings before Zach came to the house, he played video games with Seth, read comics with him. Just once, when Zach in the kitchen there in the morning—really, really early before Sandy and Kirsten were up, Ryan just looked at them whispering to each other, walked out of the house, and went for a run. Otherwise, everything was cool.

 

* * *

 

One day late in the summer, Ryan was with Summer in her bedroom, grunting at her requests for feedback as she modeled clothes. She suddenly stopped, mid-hair flip, and sat next to him on the bed.

“You know, Atwood, I’m not just hanging out with you because I’m lonely,” she said.

“Summer,” he said, “I hope you’re not getting the wrong…” 

“Oh, please!” she said. “Not that you aren’t easy on the eyes, but I know you’re Cohen’s love lackey. Far be it from me to come between the One True Pair. Listen. I think I’ve shown myself to be a pretty decent person. Okay?”

Ryan smiled. “Sure, Summer,” he said.

“So, I think I have earned the right for you to spill. What’s up? Are you planning to mope forever?  Make it through the summer and hope to get over him with the help of the continental United States between you? What?”

“I honestly don’t know, Summer,” he said. “I mean, this situation really isn’t that bad for me. Seth is with a good guy.”

“But you love him,” insisted Summer.

“Yeah,” Ryan admitted. It felt… good.

“Then fight for your man!” Summer yelled at him, and punched him in the arm.

“Summer, I’m going to explain,” he said. She crossed her legs and looked at him attentively. She was a surprisingly good listener.

“Seth and I, we’re always going to be in the same family. We’re really young. We’re always going to be together, in a way, even if we’re not… together. I’m not ready for that kind of commitment. Neither is Seth, no matter what we do. Anything could happen with us. You don’t stay with the person you fall in love with at seventeen. This family means so much to me. It doesn’t matter if I—“ Ryan coughed and blushed—“if I have feelings for him…”

“You mean if you love him.” Summer corrected.

“Fine. Whatever. What Seth’s doing with Zach… that could be me. Could’ve been me. I get that. But Zach and Seth, they’ll probably break up. Even before college. We can’t do that. Seth and I could never _really_ break up. There’s holidays, there’s Sandy and Kirsten… and that’s better than whatever thing I could have right now. No matter what happens with Zach, Seth with still be there. It’s not everything, but it’s big. He’s family. I need things to be okay between us. This… what I’m doing, it’s okay. It’s the right thing. We couldn’t be together and then break up and not break something really important. And honestly, it’s not tragic. I feel fine. It feels good to do the right thing. I’m happy to give up something smaller for something big.”

Summer looked at him, opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it again. She sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “Why do you have to be, like, the perfect man, and be earmarked for Cohen? Something is seriously wrong with the world.”

Ryan laughed. “I’m doing this for myself.” He paused. “Thanks, Summer. You’ve… you help.”

“Even when I make you watch _The Valley_?” She said, wriggling her eyebrows at him. “It’s Thursday night! Feelings time is over. Other people’s feelings time has begun.” Ryan groaned and fell back on the bed as Summer pointed the remote at the screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a line at the end of the last chapter: Seth got into Brown and Ryan got into Berkeley. I realized that should have gone in earlier. The next chapters will make more sense if you know that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You may be goyim, but you are a true mensch, Ryan,” Seth said, hanging his head practically into his cereal bowl.

Three days before Seth left for Brown, he came into the kitchen, looking at his feet. “Zach broke up with me,” he said. Ryan stood up from where he was sitting at the kitchen island and clapped a hand on Seth’s back. He got him a bowl and poured him some Froot Loops. “Sorry, man,” he said. 

Seth looked at the bowl. “Typical,” he said. “He said he couldn’t do the distance. You would think he could at least try, and we could break up with some drunken text messages a couple weeks into the school year. Like civilized people. Like people who believe in romance.” Ryan poured him some milk. 

“The new Justice League comes out today,” Ryan said. “I’ll go get it.” 

“You may be goyim, but you are a true mensch, Ryan,” Seth said, hanging his head practically into the cereal bowl.

Ryan grabbed Seth’s hand and stuck the spoon into it. “Eat. I’ll be back.” Seth barely looked up. 

Ryan called Summer on his way to the comic book store. “I have to stay home today. Sorry.” He swore he could hear her rolling his eyes.

“I heard. Zach dumped his ass. Do what you have to do,” Summer said. 

Later, Ryan and Seth sat in front of the couch, absorbed in a game. Seth won and actually got up and danced around the room. 

“You’re not very good at moping, Seth,” said Ryan. 

Seth sighed and slumped back down. “First big breakup. Need practice.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking orange juice and looking at the Grand Theft Auto intro screen. Then Seth cleared his throat a few times, and Ryan raised his eyebrows at him. Seth looked at him and then looked at the carpet. “How about you and Summer?” he said. 

Ryan choked on his orange juice. “Um, Summer?”

“Yeah,” said Seth, not looking at him. “You crazy kids going to make a go of it?”

“You don’t think… we’re not…” Ryan coughed. “We’re not together, Seth.”

“Really?” Seth asked. 

“You think I would date your ex-girlfriend? And not talk to you about it?”

“I don’t know,” said Seth. “Stranger things have happened. We don’t really talk about stuff now.” 

Ryan put his orange juice down and pulled at a thread in the carpet in front of him. “We would talk about that.”

“So you’re saying that you haven’t dated anyone the last half a year. And that you and Summer are… friends. Good friends who hang out every day? And you go _shopping_ with her even though you aren’t fooling around?”

“Like you said, Seth, stranger things have happened.” Ryan still didn’t look up. 

“Hmm. I don’t know about that,” said Seth.

“So you thought we were together this whole time?” Ryan usually would have ended the conversation as quickly as possible, but this was important. And Seth seemed weirdly pissed.

“Well, yeah.” Seth wouldn’t meet his eye. “Why wouldn’t you be? You spend, like, every freaking day together. I wouldn’t have you and Summer pegged as best compadres.”

Ryan was quiet for a solid minute. Seth’s hands stopped moving in the air. The screen beeped periodically. “She’s not my best friend. But we… we have some things in common,” Ryan said. 

“Alright, dude. Whatever.” Seth shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “Where were we? Oh, right, I was beating your ass.”

*****  
Seth and Ryan spent the next three days together. It reminded Ryan of the first three days he had spent at the Cohen’s. They even went sailing. Summer came over and listened to Seth for hours straight, patting his arm sympathetically as he talked about Zach. 

They all went to the airport together to see Seth off to NYU. “You’re going to call us every week, Seth,” said Kirsten. “I’m proud of you, son,” said Sandy. Summer smacked Seth in the arm to distract them from the tears in her eyes. Seth pulled Ryan in for a hug. A quick, manly hug with a single pat on the back. Then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you never expected to see this story update! I always meant to finish it. I'm working on it now. I forgot how fun it was to write. Also, I'm changing the rating to teen and up because I think that's what it's going to end up being. "Mature" is kind of intimidating to me at the moment, and my goal is to finish this thing.


End file.
